For hefty fees, a Booklyn rabbi orchestrated the kidnapping and torture of reluctant husbands who wouldn’t give their wives a divorce

By:Joseph GoldsteinMichael SchwirtzThe New York Times, Published on Fri Oct 11 2013

In Brooklyn’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods, Mendel Epstein made a name for himself as the rabbi to see for women struggling to divorce their husbands. Among the Orthodox, a divorce requires the husband’s permission, known as a “get,” and tales abound of women whose husbands refuse to consent.

While it is common for rabbis to take drastic action, such as barring a defiant husband from synagogue life, Epstein, 68, took matters much further, according to the authorities.

For hefty fees, he orchestrated the kidnapping and torture of reluctant husbands, charging their wives as much as $10,000 for a rabbinical decree permitting violence and $50,000 to hire others to carry out the deed, according to federal charges unsealed Thursday morning.

Epstein, along with another rabbi, Martin Wolmark, who is the head of a Jewish school, as well as several men on what the authorities called the “kidnap team,” appeared in U.S. District Court in Trenton, N.J., after a sting operation in which an undercover federal agent posed as an Orthodox Jewish woman soliciting Epstein’s services.

Paul Fishman, the U.S. attorney for New Jersey, said in an interview that investigators have “uncovered evidence” of about a couple of dozen victims. Many are men from Brooklyn who were taken to New Jersey as part of the kidnappings.

In court, the lead prosecutor in the case, R. Joseph Gribko, explained how the abductions were carried out. “They beat them up, tied them up, shocked them with Tasers and stun guns until they got what they want,” Gribko, an assistant U.S. attorney, said.

Gribko said the defendants had been motivated by money, not faith.

According to newspaper accounts from the late 1990s, other men, too, have come forward with similar tales of curbside abductions and mistreatment.

Epstein seemed confident that local authorities wouldn’t investigate too closely. In a recorded meeting with the female undercover FBI agent, Epstein explained that his preferred torture techniques, like electric shocks, offered little physical evidence of abuse, according to the complaint. Without obvious visible injuries, Epstein said, the police were unlikely to inquire too deeply if any victims came forward.

Epstein made his living appearing before the rabbinical courts, where he advocated on behalf of a spouse seeking an exit, another rabbi said. He took a special interest in the constraints wives faced, speaking about the rights of women in terms not often heard in his deeply conservative, community.

When two undercover FBI agents — one posing as a woman seeking a divorce, the other as her brother — asked a rabbi for help, the rabbi explained how Epstein might be able to assist them.

“You need special rabbis who are going to take this thing and see it through to the end,” Rabbi Martin Wolmark, a respected figure who presides over a school in Monsey, N.Y., said in a recorded telephone call on Aug. 7. He described Epstein as “a hired hand” who could help, according to the criminal complaint in the case.

When the undercover agents met with Epstein a week later, he said that he was confident he could secure a get once his “tough guys” had made their threats.

The undercover female FBI agent told Epstein that she wanted to divorce her husband, described as a businessman in South America, who refused to grant her request. Epstein urged her to lure the man to New Jersey, which she pledged to do.

Next Epstein and Wolmark convened their own rabbinical court, complete with legalisms and formalities, to issue a religious edict “authorizing the use of violence to obtain a forced get,” according to court records. The undercover agent offered testimony before the two rabbis, who were joined by other religious figures.

Told that the husband was arriving in New Jersey, eight of Epstein’s associates met at a New Jersey warehouse to finalize the kidnapping plan, according to court documents. At that point FBI agents moved in to arrest the group. The agents seized masks, ropes, scalpels and feather quills and ink bottles used to record the get they anticipated.

On Thursday, the 10 defendants were denied bail after appearing in court in Trenton, N.J., on the kidnapping conspiracy charges.